PPP is teasing new numbers showing Santorum pulling ahead of Romney nationally in the primary, but this poll will get even more attention:
 

In a potential Election 2012 matchup, the president attracts 50% of the vote and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 40%. This is the largest lead the president has enjoyed against Romney in regular polling going back more than a year. It’s also the first time that the president has reached the 50% level of support against Romney.

Rick Santorum now trails the president by four percentage points, 46% to 42%. Rasmussen Reports will now be tracking the Obama-Santorum race on a daily basis. Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Last week, Santorum had a one-point advantage over Obama. However, like Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich before him, Santorum was unable to sustain that advantage beyond a single poll. In the crucial swing state of Ohio, Santorum is now even with the president. Romney trails by four.

The Santorum surge is for real, which isn't great news for Romney.  Then again, this process is cyclical.  The White House will say they're thrilled by this outcome, but there's danger here, too.  With his approval rating ascendant at the moment -- thanks in part to the U3 pop -- the incumbent still only pulls 46 percent against his closest Republican competitor.  Once Republicans stop knifing eacthother during this bloody primary, the unity process will begin, and Obama's negative coverage holiday will end.  Until that time, it'll be a rumble for the nomination -- with Obama as the beneficiary.  That dynamic is nothing new.  Santorum made the case for himself at CPAC this morning, delivering pointed attacks on the president and Mitt Romney flanked by his family (via Greg's post below):
 

Romney spoke a few hours later, underlining his conservative bona fides -- such as they exist -- and savaging the current president's "ineptitude and failure."  The main message of Romney's speech today was pretty savvy.  As I've written previously, he cannot credibly attack Santorum from the Right on many policy issues, and process arguments (electability, etc) are difficult to make, especially in light of today's polling.  The former governor's best tactic against Santorum is to emphasize the importance executive leadership, a theme he discussed at length today:
 

I spent 25 years in business, starting at the bottom and going on to help create a great American success story. I led an Olympics out of the shadows of scandal and turned around a state crying out for leadership.  In each of these endeavors, I worked with many talented people, but I was the Chief Executive. Success or failure lay on my shoulders. When tough decisions had to be made, I made them. Leadership as a Chief Executive isn’t about getting a bill out of subcommittee or giving a speech – it’s about setting clear goals and overcoming constant adversity. It’s about sharing credit when times are good and taking responsibility for failure.

I am the only candidate in this race, Republican or Democrat, who has never worked a day in Washington. I don’t have old scores to settle or decades of cloakroom deals to defend.  As conservatives, you’ve learned to be skeptical of this city and its politicians and right you are. My wife and I raised five boys and one of the lessons you learn is that when you hear an excuse that just doesn’t make sense… it’s because it doesn’t make sense. And let me tell you, any politician who tries to convince you that they hated Washington so much that they just couldn’t leave, well, that’s the same politician who will try to sell you a Bridge to Nowhere.

That last sentence is a clear shot across Santorum's bow.  Romney might practice what he preaches on "taking responsibility for failure" by specifically explaining what elements of Romneycare "didn't work" -- a point he often glosses over.  As of this writing, Newt Gingrich is addressing CPAC, delivering a variation the stump speech he's been using since Florida.   One noticeable change: Zero attacks on his Republican competitors.  Hmm.  Reverting to nice Newt, or seeing the writing on the wall?  Ron Paul is not attending CPAC this year.

In an exclusive chat with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) here at CPAC, I had the opportunity to ask the Senate Republican Leader about a number of short and long term battles in Washington.  Our wide ranging discussion spanned several hot issues, from Obamacare repeal to the 'Fast & Furious' scandal:
 

Cheat sheet -- Here are the time stamps for each question:
 

1:00 - Are Senate Republicans backing away from Obamacare repeal as a top priority?

2:15 - What, if anything, can Congress do to block or reverse the Obama administration's unconstitutional birth control mandate?

3:30 - President Obama and Senate Democrats have been ignoring the Constitution and disregarding long-standing precedent to further their agenda.  Are you prepared to retailiate?

6:45 - What is your response to Senate Democrats' ongoing refusal to follow the law and pass a budget?

8:05 - How do Senate Republicans plan to keep the president's dreadful Keystone XL decision in the spotlight?

10:20 - Will you join Sen. Grassley and Rep. Issa in demanding complete transparency from Attorney General Holder on the Fast & Furious scandal?

11:15 - What do you make of your former Senate colleague Rick Santorum's presidential surge?

The big take-aways, from my perspective: (1) McConnell's number one priority in 2013 will be full Obamacare repeal -- if a new president is elected, of course.  (2) The minority leader has little appetite to directly retaliate for Harry Reid's unprecedented powergrabs.  (3) McConnell will force votes on both the 2013 House-passed budget resolution and President Obama's forthcoming (and pitiful) budget proposal.  (4) Senate Republicans intend to embed Keystone as a thorn in Democrats' side through the election. (5) McConnell really doesn't want to say anything that could be construed as a statement indicating his presidential preference.

It was quite an opening day at CPAC 2012, as two emerging superstars of the movement offered compelling critiques of Obamaism, and laid out a principled path -- brick by brick -- to conservative victory.  I can only hope the remaining 2012 GOP presidential candidates were taking copious notes.  We reviewed Sen. Marco Rubio's powerful message yesterday afternoon; not to be outdone, Rep. Paul Ryan articulated his vision for "opportunity, prosperity, and growth," versus the president's road to "debt, doubt, and decline" at last night's banquet.  A few choice excerpts, via Ryan's Prosperity PAC:
 

It will not be enough to repeal the President’s disastrous health-care law. We must solve the problem in health care by curbing out-of-control costs that erode paychecks for working families and push quality coverage out of reach for millions of Americans. It will not be enough to stop the administration’s war against proven sources of American-made energy. We must build the case for developing energy here at home, to create jobs and lower the price of energy in this country. It will not be enough to stop Washington’s reckless spending spree, which has spread cronyism and corporate welfare. We must bring the bureaucracy to heel and restore the rule of law where it was replaced by the whims of those in power. And it will not be enough to condemn the President’s attempt to pit one group of Americans against another.  Instead, we must promote upward mobility, starting with solutions that speak to our broken education system, broken immigration policy, and broken safety-net programs that foster dependency instead of helping people get back on their feet...

 

While President Obama shirks his responsibility to advance solutions to our fiscal challenges, he can no longer hide from the merciless math of the balance sheet. Conservatives have made certain of that.  We have pressured the President to put forward a number of deficit-reduction proposals – and while none has offered a credible solution to our fiscal crisis, each one has revealed a little bit more about what the President would do if he were forced to end the deficits. It wouldn’t be pretty. His proposals have three things in common: they load massive tax increases on small businesses and hardworking families, they require bureaucratic rationing in government health care programs, and they hollow out our national security. Every time we force the President and his party’s leaders to get specific on how they would solve our fiscal challenges, they show us an agenda that does great harm to our economic security, our health security, and our national security...

 

The President himself is framing this election as a stark choice between two conflicting visions. Recently he said that, “The very core of what this country stands for is on the line – the notion that we’re all in this together, that we look out for one another – that’s at stake in this election.”  “We’re all in this together” versus “You’re on your own” – that’s how the President is defining this choice.  “We’re all in this together” – it’s a powerful and appropriate phrase for describing the best in our nation’s history. It speaks to our affinity for family, community, and the religious institutions through which we really do look out for one another. But the reality is that the President’s rhetoric has always conflicted with the President’s agenda. The policy agenda he has promoted weakens these very institutions. It stifles their vitality and substitutes federal power in their place. He says, “We’re all in this together” – but his re-election strategy is to divide Americans, to foster envy and resentment, and to push programs that entrench dependency and grow government...

 

Full video is HERE.  I'll leave you with Ryan laying the groundwork for his message on Fox & Friends, where he responds to a predictably dense and dishonest statement from a Democrat spokesman on Medicare reform.  Ryan does an excellent job of beating back the lies, but I'd add two additional points:  (1) The seniors who've "paid into this system for a lifetime" are exempt from Ryan's reforms, as are adults within ten years of retirement.  Under Ryan's plan, future seniors are not forced to "wither on the vine" (they'd receive an average of $18,000+ in premium subsidies by 2030), nor are the "ultra wealthy" favored -- they'd actually receive lower subsidies.  (2) Medicare "as we know it" will become insolvent within a dozen years if we do nothing, and tinkering around the margins for show will only briefly forestall that fate.  What happens to all the seniors Democrats purport to care about within that eventuality? And with that, over to you, Mr. Chairman:

Regular readers are likely aware that I am a card-carrying member of the Marco Rubio fan club.  Earlier today, I was privileged to be among a small group of conservative journalists who sat down with the freshman Senator to discuss our nation's political state of play.  In his brief opening remarks, Rubio previewed his speech to the conference at large, video of which is linked below.  First, though, here's a sneak peek of Rubio evaluating President Obama's cynical re-election strategy, building a positive case against class divisions, and seamlessly transitioning into contemplating America's unique role in the world (video via my colleague Ed Morrissey of Hot Air):
 

During the Q&A session, Rubio fielded queries on a wide array of subjects, from the Iranian nuclear threat, to the president's unconstitutional birth control mandate, to immigration, to how Republicans can win by staying true to their conservative beliefs.  NRO's Jim Geragthy has a nice recap on the meeting with key pull quotes, of which I'll pilfer a few:
 

What he expects from the general election: “You’re going to have an extremely negative [general election] campaign. Barack Obama in 2008 spent more money on negative attacks than anybody who had ever run for office in the United States. Period. And we can expect more of the same. Basically, an all-out assault on the character of whoever his opponent may be, because [Barack Obama] cannot win on his record, he cannot win on his ideas. So he’s going to have to win by eviscerating whoever his opponents are personally. And for all the talk of hope and change, his campaign in 2008 and I expect in 2012 will be nothing less than all-out than personal evisceration.”

On the Senate failing to pass a budget for the past 1,000 days: “Even the most disorganized person I know has a budget. Every family, every business I know has a budget. Every entity I deal with has a budget. The idea that the most powerful government in the world . . . does not have a budget . . . I just think that’s weird. I really don’t understand the logic of it.”

On whether Republicans should risk a government shutdown in future budget fights: “No one here advocates a government shutdown, but we are headed towards the ultimate government shutdown, the mother of all government shutdowns, when we run out of money. That is where we are headed. The sovereign-debt crisis, when people stop buying your bonds and start demanding higher yields, meaning higher interest rates on the money they let you borrow, that stuff happens quickly. There’s no way to predict it, it just happens. Look no further than what the European Union is struggling with to see that’s where we’re headed. The mother of all government shutdowns occurs when we can’t borrow money anymore, or we have to borrow money just to pay the interest on the money we’re borrowing.”

What he thinks the Republican nominee’s message on Obamacare should be, in a nutshell: “One, it’s going to hurt the quality of health care in America; two, it’s going to take away the existing insurance that you’re happy with.”

These answers are framed masterfully.  I'll confess that as I watched Rubio effortlessly synthesize powerful conservative ideas with conviction, in an optimistic and unthreatening manner, it was hard to suppress a sense of frustration that the current crop of GOP presidential candidates don't share his gifts.   Here's a snippet Rubio lighting up the main ballroom during his well-received speech:

Video of the full speech is available HERE.  Seriously, watch the whole thing -- Rubio's lengthy criticism of Obama's anti-religious contraception mandate (beginning around 12:00) is very powerful.

Pressure is mounting on the White House to reverse its appalling decision to force religious institutions to violate core doctrinein order to comply with Obamacare.  But as some liberals begin to break ranks with his administration -- we'll get to that in a moment -- the president is reportedly doubling down on his radical assault on the First Amendment:
 

President Obama “reinforced” his stance on the controversial contraception mandate while speaking at the Democrats’ annual retreat at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. today, Senate Democrats said.  The retreat was closed to media. Following President Obama’s speech at the retreat, a small group of Senate Democrats, mostly women, left the retreat early in order to hold a news conference on Capitol Hill to counter the Republicans’ news conference today at which they called for the mandate to be overturned. Democrats said they will “fight strongly” to keep the mandate in place.

Democrats today called on Republicans to stop using women as a “political football,” and stop defining this debate, as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., did earlier in the day, as a religious issue. “It’s time to tell Republicans ‘mind your own business,’” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. ”Ideology should never be used to block women from getting the care they need to lead healthier lives.

It seems as though reports that Obama was reconsidering his position were off-base.  Let's be very clear here.  Contra some Democrats' talking points, this is emphatically not a women's issue.  This is a clear-cut Constitutional issue.  The First Amendment -- which liberals regularly (and falsely) invoke to discredit a worldview that conflicts with their ahistorical view of the "separation of church and state" -- is unambiguous on this point:
 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

In this case, Obama is directly prohibiting Catholics and other religious organizations from freely exercising their faith by requiring them to provide services and "benefits" that directly violate the tenets of their faith.  In other words, maybe it's the government that should "minding its own business," to rephrase Sen. Lautenberg perversion of the truth.  As much as Democrats froth at the mouth about Republicans "using women as political footballs," this is not a partisan issue.  As I said before, it is a core Constitutional question, which should transcend ideology.  A double-digit majority of Americans understand this, as do an overwhelming majority of US Catholics.  Encouragingly, a growing number of Democrats and Center-Left figures are publicly dissenting from Obama's indefensible dictate:
 

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who faces re-election in November, sent a letter to Obama complaining that the mandate is a "direct affront to religious freedoms." Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., said in January that the decision "violates the long-standing tradition of protection for conscience rights in federal law." Tim Kaine, a Catholic seeking the Senate seat in Virginia, said he supports contraceptive coverage but thinks there should be a broader exemption for religious organizations.

Democrat-aligned Senators Lieberman and Casey have also joined the chorus of opposition, as have liberal Catholic media figures such as Chris Matthews and EJ Dionne, who called the presidents' decision "frightening" and a "betrayal" on MSNBC:
 

The president and many of his Congressional Democrat allies are far outside of the American mainstream here, and their disregard for the plain text of our Consitution has been laid bare.  As Sen. Marco Rubio pointed out during a briefing with a small group of conservative journalists at CPAC earlier this morning, even Obama's own Vice President and outgoing Chief of Staff cautioned against this move.  Bloomberg confirms this account:
 

Vice President Joe Biden and then-White House chief of staff Bill Daley, also Catholics, warned that the mandate would be seen as a government intrusion on religious institutions. Even moderate Catholic voters in battleground states might be alienated, they warned, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

Other reports suggested that Obama's political team made the calculation that although this mandate might alienate some Catholic voters, it could energize women and young voters -- as if those groups uniformly support this affront to religious liberty. Obama to people of Faith and the Constitution: Drop Dead.  This president must go, and ought not be afforded, in Rubio's words, "a contract extension after four losing seasons."

Capitol Hill Republicans are circulating this clip, and for good reason.  Watch in wonder as our Law Professor President's top spokesman breezily expresses "no opinion" over whether the US Senate should meet it's legal obligation to offer and pass a FY 2013 budget:
 

Oh, wrong answer, Jay.  Why would you lamely refuse to offer any opinion on the matter when your party has already concocted a dishonest insta-excuse to deflect Tapper's question?  And why do I know Democrats' fraudulent talking points better than the White House Press Secretary?  Pay close attention, Jay -- Schumer's a real pro:
 

Senate Democratic leaders on Friday said they do not intend to bring a fiscal 2013 budget up for a floor vote. "We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year — it's done, we don't need to do it," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters on Friday. Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued that the debt-limit agreement in August directs spending for the next year and said Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has already asked the heads of the subcommittees to write their appropriations bills for fiscal 2013. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has said he would probably mark up a budget resolution for 2013, but Reid recently told the Hill he didn't expect any floor action on a measure produced by the panel.

See?  "The Senate doesn't need to offer a budget this year because they've already done so," sounds so much better than an effective "no comment."  Carney does dissemble on the Budget Control Act a bit, quasi-suggesting that it's sort of a budget, but he doesn't quite own the lie the way Schumer and Reid do.  It is a lie, of course, because the debt deal only set forth general spending caps and targets; it in no way, shape, or form constitutes a budget.  Those contain detailed roadmaps on tax policy, specific appropriations priorities, and entitlement reforms.  Ask any business owner, homemaker, or Republican member of Congress whether their working definition of a budget involves "deeming" a spending celiling while offering zero details on how money is distributed.  Oh, and for the zillionth time, Congress is legally required to pass tangible budget resolutions every single year -- a task Reid's tribe hasn't even attempted in nearly three.  Carney may not care to weigh in on this elementary question, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wasn't nearly as bashful during recent testimony before Congress:
 

More than 1,000 days of uncertainty -- resulting from craven political calculation -- hinders economic growth.  Go figure.  One doesn't have to be a Fed whiz to reach that conclusion; it's common sense.  And a solid growth strategy is precisely what our ailing economy needs at the moment, to say nothing of the legal requirement aspect of all this.  Never fear, Carney assures us, President Obama will release his own budget next week.  What could go wrong?

President Obama is unpopular.  His "signature accomplishment" is widely despised, his top economic initiative has flopped, and his re-election prospects are mixed, at best.  Unable to run on a record of failure, Obama is gearing up for an enduringly negative and blame-filled 2012 campaign.  A critical element of this effort will be a persistent, deeply ugly push by the president's allies to paint his critics as racists.  We saw some of this four years ago, of course, but then-candidate Obama had strong political headwinds and Operation HopenChange working in his favor in 2008.  This year, voters will be subjected to an endless drumbeat of race baiting -- an unholy political Hail Mary that Democrats hope will distract voters from real issues and force Republicans into a permanent defensive crouch.  Politico sets the table for the coming battle, offering helpful tips for Leftists on what sorts of things can be instantly racialized (hint -- it's everything):
 

The issue of race and American politics, never far beneath the surface during Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, is making a loud, overt and surprisingly early appearance in the 2012 presidential race. And no one knows — least of all Obama himself — what impact the race card, always a wild card, will have on the president’s reelection prospects. In the past several months, Newt Gingrich has drawn sharp criticism for labeling Obama the “food stamp president” and for suggesting poor kids in New York’s majority-minority school system burnish their work ethic by picking up mops. First lady Michelle Obama bridled at the perception that she’s an “angry black woman.” Obama’s Chicago-based campaign has pushed back against stories that he’s more or less given up on the white vote.

But nothing has illustrated the potentially explosive political impact of race — an issue that Obama has downplayed throughout his career — like the firestorm around the image of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wagging her finger at the first black president of the United States. If there were any illusion that 2012 would be the post-racial election most Americans hoped for, it vanished with that single shake of a finger and 30 seconds of sniping lost to history in the turbine roar of Air Force One. The issue that sparked the tarmac showdown was nominally the ongoing battle between Brewer and the White House over immigration policy. But the brief episode infuriated African-American leaders, who saw the image of a white conservative berating Obama as the visual summation of all the disrespect shown to Obama by white antagonists from Joe “You lie!” Wilson to Glenn Beck to Gingrich.

Let's approach these pieces of evidence one by one, shall we?
 

(1) Empirically, President Obama is the food stamp president.  Food stamp usage has spiked to a record high during his presidency with nearly 15 percent of the US population -- white, black, and green -- receiving subsidies.  Nearly as many Americans have been put on food stamps during Obama's partial term as were added to the rolls during President Bush's two full terms in office.  Gingrich has also said that his goal is to transition millions of Americans (again, of all races) from states of dependency to self-reliance through the dignity of work, which also plays into Newt's controversial ideas about child labor  He's also dinged his GOP opponent Mitt Romney for his "little food stamp" mentality.  Is this also racist, somehow?

(2) In the context of this story, the term "angry black woman" was uttered by Michelle Obama herself, responding to unspecified criticisms she perceived in a book written about the Obama White House by a New York Times correspondent. 

(3) That Obama's abandoning the white working class report came from a New York Times piece written by Thomas Edsall, formerly of the Huffington Post. 

(4) Hopes for a post-racial election "vanished" when Gov. Jan Brewer pointing her finger at President Obama during a heated exchange that he instigated?  Does anyone at Politico actually read their own stuff?  The Obama Justice Department has been highly racialized from day one of this administration, and Obama partisans have consistently seen racism around every corner as a means of disqualifying legitimate dissent.  The Brewer finger-pointing incident has to be one of the silliest "racism" charges to date, yet Politico elevates it as some sort of a defining moment.  How ridiculous.

(5) Rep. Joe Wilson may have been out of line when he heckled the president during his 2010 healthcare address to Congress.  To ascribe his outburst to racism is baseless and slanderous.  And despite his poor form, he was right on substance: President Obama was not telling the truth in the passage that raised Wilson's ire. 

Every example Politico cites as a troubling omen of our incipient racial tempest falls into one of two categories.  Either they are factual statements being drowned out by people who abhor uncomfortable truths, or they're quotes and/or reports from liberals about liberals.  This is the game the media will play.  They'll establish a Democrat-friendly narrative ("why, this election is going to be wildly racial because our black president is up for re-election!") and then fill the "evidence" in later.  Someone gesitculates while disagreeing with Obama?  That's racial.  Someone else (accurately) accuses him of lying?  Racial.  The first lady denies she's an "angry black woman," based on a book written by a liberal?  Racial.  That's the beauty of the plan: It doesn't matter who's fueling the story.  The story in and of itself is the goal, designed to insulate Obama from the sort of attacks that characterize all contemporary political races.  As I've written before, this strategy is cynical and tragic.  It's cynical because it does lasting damage to the soul of the country by intentionally inflaming racial tensions, all in order to gain cheap, fleeting partisan advantage.  It's tragic because authentic racism does still exist in today's America, and crying wolf on matters of racial bigotry cheapens the accusation, rendering it less powerful when it is accurately leveled.

Parting thoughts: (1) As liberals -- including, disappointingly, the great Juan Williams -- lecture us about "dog whistles" and "code words," take mental note of how often Democrats and their allies mention Mitt Romney's religion, should he become the nominee.  Keep your eyes peeled for thumb-sucking MSM stories like this, which merely "raise questions" about Mormon Mitt Romney's Mormony Mormonism. (2) How will independents, who rallied to Obama in 2008 and pushed him over the top, react when they're incessantly informed by the Left that they've somehow morphed into knuckle-dragging racists over the last four years?

This could get very ugly.  Heritage's Lachlan Markay has the exclusive:
 

The “Occupy DC” protest group is planning to disrupt the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference using a range of potentially illegal tactics that could even include violence against participants, Scribe has learned. During a Thursday meeting at McPherson Square, until Saturday the epicenter of the protests, Occupiers brainstormed tactics for shutting down or disrupting the conference, according to a source who was present at the meeting. The protesters suggested pulling fire alarms in the hotel where the conference will take place, screaming “fire” during conference activities, “glitter-bombing” participants, cutting electrical power, and barricading entrances to the hotel, according to the source, who requested anonymity.

That covers the "distruption" bit, but what about the whispers of violence?
 

“Speakers will be physically assaulted, not just verbally confronted,” the source told Scribe in an email. Two Occupiers, who the source also identified as members of the New Black Panther Party, “said they would be disappointed if they didn’t get arrested and planned to ‘make it count.’” The source quoted another protester as saying, “Mitt [Romney] has Secret Service now, but [Newt] Gingrich and [Andrew] Breitbart don’t,” seemingly suggesting that the latter two would not be as heavily guarded.

Yeah, why not "make it count?"  Eric Holder might summarily drop the charges, after all.  Seriously, those are chilling quotes -- regardless of whether they're declarations of real intent or just chest-puffery.  CPAC organizers say they're beefing up security for the weekend, but it may be tough to head-off chaos generated by embedded infiltrators:
 

An attendee of the Thursday meeting, who claimed to handle relations with labor organizations, said the AFL-CIO had booked rooms for Occupiers at the Marriott hotel, with the intention of allowing them to bypass security measures at the door. Contacted by Scribe, an AFL-CIO spokesman insisted the Occupiers’ claims were untrue. The AFL-CIO has aided Occupy DC before, most recently in storing Occupiers’ belongings at its headquarters in advance of the National Park Service’s enforcement actions.

But Occupiers are apparently planning other means of infiltration. Representatives from the American University and George Washington University “Occupy” groups said they intended to actually register their members for CPAC. Student passes are heavily discounted, and allow full access to the conference. They also said they would produce counterfeit credentials and hand them out to non-students who still wished to enter the protest. “In order to avoid having to shower and dress in business attire to blend in,” Scribe’s source said, “they plan to wear Ron Paul 2012 gear because they believe Paul supporters ‘generally look like hippies.’”

The AFL-CIO can deny, deny, deny, but as Kevin posted over the weekend, unions have been planning some CPAC subterfuge of their own.  In any case, the Occupiers are getting pretty excited about the opportunity to wreak havoc.  Via its website, here's a taste the movement's "official" description of the nation's largest annual conservative conference -- which Allahpundit accurately describes as "unparodyable:"
 

On February 9^th through February 11^th, a who’s who of dastardly politicians will be holding the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel at 2660 Woodley Road, NW. Similar to the Alfalfa Club dinner, this event is another gathering of bigots, media mouthpieces, corrupt politicians, and their 1 percent elite puppet masters. CPAC will parade and attempt to perpetuate the radical right wing’s imperialist ideologies with keynote speakers, movies and banquets dedicated to pursuing its racist, sexist, patriarchal and exploitative agenda.
 

Remember, though: Republicans, Tea Partiers, and conservatives are the dangerous, terroristic violence-mongers.  Townhall is again a major sponsor of CPAC this year, and we'll have our full editorial team on hand to cover the conference from wire to wire (hopefully without turning black and blue).

What a night for Rick Santorum, who shocked the political world by winning all three of Tuesday's presidential contests.  Even though no delegates were technically awarded based on the results in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota, Santorum's clean sweep slammed the breaks on Mitt Romney's momentum, and again cast the frontrunner's inevitability into serious doubt.  An ebullient  -- and perhaps even slightly surprised -- Santorum greeted cheering supporters in the Show Me State, declaring that "conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota."  The former Senator delivered his victory speech before Colorado fell into his column, which represented the biggest stunner of the night, by far:
 

Breitbart TV has the rest of the speech, which was delivered without notes or prepared remarks.  On one hand, it's clear that Santorum is fluent in conservatism.  He has lived and breathed the movement for his entire career, a few voting record blemishes notwithstanding.  On the other hand, tonight was a big stage for him, and a tighter, more focused message would have served him well.  Delivery aside (and style points can be fixed) Santorum's message was strong.  He hit President Obama and Romney on healthcare.  He stuck a chord with conservatives by deriding the president's arrogance ("he thinks he's smarter than you").  And he slammed Obama's recent unconstitutional mandate rulings that erode religious freedom.  Santorum was outspent and out-organized, yet he still pulled off a huge night.  I'd be willing to bet his coffers will start to fill up tomorrow; ballot box success tends to breed fundraising prowess.  As February unfolds ahead of March and Super Tuesday, one thing -- and maybe only one thing -- is clear: This race ain't over.

Another minor winner tonight is Ron Paul, who clinched second place in Minnesota's caucuses.  This represents Paul's first second top-two finish this year, although where he goes from here isn't clear.  Now, onto the evening's losers.  Mitt Romney seemed to be cruising after wins in Florida and Nevada, but his journey to Tampa has been jolted by a distant second place finish in Missouri (where Santorum won every single county) and by coming in third in Minnesota (how's that Pawlenty endorsement working out?).  The governor gave a workmanlike concession speech, congratulating Santorum on his wins before quickly pivoting to criticisms of Obama.  He also flashed a quick tell of his upcoming 'sink Santorum' strategy, which will involve attacks on Washington insiders and the former Senator's dearth of executive experience.  Although they would have loved to have taken Missouri or Minnesota, Colorado is the lost prize that really stings for Team Romney; they were fully expecting a relatively smooth win there.  Not only did they end up losing the Centennial State, it wasn't even that close.  Wow.  One minor side note: After his brief address, Romney worked the rope line, where he dodged a "glitter bomb" attack from a Leftist.  Secret Service agents rushed the young perpetrator out of the room:
 

Tuesday's titanic loser was Newt Gingrich.  Ahead of the results, his campaign attempted to project a sense of insouciance by holding rallies in Ohio and releasing statements downplaying the importance of this week's contents.  After Santorum's monster showing, no one's going to buy that act.  Yes, Missouri's primary was totally non-binding, and yes, the two caucuses didn't assign any delegates.  But votes are votes, and votes dictate momentum.  Newt's entire rationale for his continued candidacy is that he's the only conservative alternative who is viable against the former Massachusetts governor.  Santorum has now carried four states, compared to Gingrich's lone victory in South Carolina.  Santorum's process argument against Newt will now be twofold:  First, scoreboard.  Second, even though it was essentially a beauty contest, I thumped Romney one-on-one in a swing state -- where you failed to even qualify for the ballot.  That's a compelling one-two punch.  Rick's team has ballot access issues of its own to contend with, but for now, Gingrich's insistence that he's "the guy" to carry the Not Romney banner is less convincing than ever.

Up Next: Arizona and Michigan on the 28th, with a debate six days earlier in Mesa, AZ.  Both states are thought to be favorable terrain for Romney, but who really knows at this point?  This cycle has shown that conventional wisdom can shift in a nanosecond, so the next three weeks will feel like a political eternity.  (I should also note that Maine, with its unusual caucus process and handful of delegates, finishes voting this weekend). 

UPDATE - I'm seeing a lot of analysis online and on television regarding Romney's poor showing in Colorado vis-a-vis his 2008 numbers, when he coasted to a blow-out win.  These comparisons ignore a significant paradigm, and are therefore pretty useless.  In 2008, Mitt Romney emerged as the anti-McCain, anti-squish candidate.  Today, Romney has supplanted McCain in that dynamic, and Santorum and Gingrich are battling to be the '08 Romney of '12. 

He's an ardent believer in money-out-of-politics good government, you see, except when those lofty principles complicate the all-surpassing goal of attaining and fortifying political power:
 

On a conference call with members of President Obama’s 2012 reelection committee Monday evening, campaign manager Jim Messina announced that donors should start funding Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC run by two former White House staffers, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney. The move was a remarkable shift in approach toward the independent political expenditure groups, whose role in the political process Obama has criticized and from which his campaign had sought to keep distance. Just seven months earlier, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt assured, “Neither the President nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs,” according to the LA Times.

Not only has our pious president "criticized" these independent groups, he's actually labeled them "a threat to our democracy." Indeed, these Super PACS are such a mortal threat to the American Way that Obama supporters are now compelled to embrace them.  Funny how that works.  The impetus for this "remarkable shift"?  The Koch Brothers, natch:
 

Messina noted that “the President, Vice President, and First Lady will not be a part of this effort; their political activity will remain focused on the President’s campaign.” “As has become evident in the past month, the only enthusiasm in the Republican Party is among oil company billionaires and investment bankers on Wall Street looking to defeat President Obama,” Burton said in a statement. “We’re committed to providing a balance to Karl Rove and the Koch brothers who have pledged more than half a billion dollars to their effort.”

Ah yes.  Blame a few Lefty betes noires and those devious Wall Street types -- who, you may recall, generously bankrolled Obama's 2008 campaign.  Messina and company claim they have no choice but to fight back against the building tidal wave of right-wing cash that could (heaven forbid!) "buy the election."  This ignores the fact that Democrats out-spent Republicans in 2008 and 2010 by hundreds of millions of dollars, and that Team Obama set out to raise one billion dollars for 2012.  In order to fight back against the well-oiled Democrat Money Machine, the Right has embraced Super PACs as a mechanism to begin to level the playing field.  Don't misunderstand, there's nothing wrong with liberals recognizing an emerging disadvantage in this realm and counter-punching.  But spare us the sanctimonious garbage about how your noble aspirations were sullied by nasty conservatives who "forced" you to abandon your "principles." The truth is that when push comes to shove, the Left has zero objections to raising and spending towering mountains of greenbacks to help elect their people.  Everything else is self-congratulatory window dressing. One liberal hero who genuinely believes this stuff is former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), who is blasting Team Obama for selling out:
 

Liberal ex-Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) is ripping President Obama's decision to embrace super-PACs. Feingold, who co-authored landmark campaign finance legislation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to regulate campaigns, said Obama is "dancing with the devil" by deciding to fully support Priorities USA, a Democratic political action committee. He also said it would turn Democrats into "corporate-lite." "This is dancing with the devil. I know a lot of Democrats in D.C. don’t agree, and I understand the desire to do everything possible to win," Feingold said in a statement. "But this decision will push Democrats to become corporate-lite, and will send us head-on into a battle we know we will lose, because Republicans like Mitt Romney and his friends have and will spend more money."

Here, Feingold repeats the canard that Republicans are the Big Money party who can overwhelm "little guy" Democrats by purchasing elections.  I'd simply direct him to the links in my previous paragraph for the dirty reality.  Sorry, Russ; this ship sailed years ago.  I'll leave you with two clips.  The first is the MSNBC set wringing their hands over Obama's "cynical" decision.  Enjoy the indignation while it lasts, folks, because tomorrow it'll back to screaming about Moneybags Mormon Mitt.   The second is a fun flashback to Obama's first major foray into campaign financing hypocrisy.  John Heilemann lays out the background nicely in the first video, so I thought I'd provide 2008's shameless follow-through, which Obama has reprised this week:
 

It galls me every time I watch Obama cheerfully abandon this particular pledge while wrapping himself in the banner of electoral rectitude.  The ends always justify the means with this guy.  Always.

UPDATE - Who needs Super PACs when you can raise beaucoup bucks from the family of a notorious Mexican fugitive?  (The Obama campaign says it is refunding the money).
 

UPDATE II - A great catch by the RNC research team.  Here's The One waxing poetic in 2007 about sticking to principle, especially when it conflicts with one's own self interest.  Note the context -- he's talking about outside groups' electoral expenditures.  The really rich hypocrisy begins roughly one minute into the clip.  Remember, guys, "you can't just talk the talk:"
 

The White House and the media were ecstatic about Friday's BLS unemployment report, which showed the national jobless rate dropping to 8.3 percent, as the US economy added 243,000 jobs.  These should be welcome results for all Americans, CBO's harrowing 2012 economic projections notwithstanding.  Although the headlines were uniformly positive, reality isn't quite as cheery.  Leftist Paul Krugman notes that long-term unemployment remains historically persistent, the U-6 "real" unemployment rate still floats above 15 percent, and -- most distressingly -- the labor force continues to contract.  Zero Hedge documented Friday's flat-out bad news (emphasis his):
 

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.

The Heritage Foundation confirms the plunge in labor force participation in this chart, followed by another graph demonstrating that by the Obama administration's own projections (which were used to sell the stimulus to anxious Americans in 2009), the unemployment rate should be more than two percentage points lower than today's 8.3 percent:
 

And the failed-on-its-own-terms "stimulus" data:
 

Nevertheless, saccharine headlines and "I get better with age!" happy talk from President Obama -- matched with a lackluster and increasingly bitter GOP primary -- will give the incumbent an approval boost.  Right on cue, the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll purports to show Obama hitting the magic 50 percent mark and leading Mitt Romney in head-to-head general election contest.  Celebrate good times, Democrats!  Except...the poll is "worthless," according to Hot Air's Ed Morrissey.  Why?
 

First, this is a poll of general population adults rather than registered or likely voters, so it’s not even a proper polling type for the predictive outcome they claim. More importantly, though, the poll series has dropped its reporting of partisan identification within their samples.  It’s the second time that the poll has not included the D/R/I split in its sample report, and now it looks as though this will be policy from this point forward.  Since this is a poll series that has handed double-digit partisan advantages to Democrats in the past (for instance, this poll from April 2011 where the sample only had 22% Republicans), it’s not enough to just hear “trust us” on sample integrity from the Washington Post or ABC. One cannot determine whether Obama’s improvement in this series is a result of the State of the Union speech, as Dan Balz and Jon Cohen suggest, or whether it’s due to shifting the sample to favor Democrats more so than in previous samples.

Indeed, WaPo/ABC's numbers have been raked over the coals by conservatives in the past for their ludicrously unbalanced party ID samples.  This pollster has displayed an interesting habit of surveying far more Democrats than Republicans, which -- surprise! -- produces favorable data for Democrats.  Rather than be held to account for their questionable methods,  WaPo/ABC has simply decided to hide their methodology from the public altogether.  Which reminds me: I'd like to announce the release of a new nationwide poll of likely voters that shows Barack Obama's approval rating falling to 36 percent.  This IGB* survey reveals that Obama would lose to every possible Republican opponent by at least seven points.  Whom did this pollster question, you ask?  It's IGB's policy to adhere to the Washington Post/ABC News precedent and not release that data.  But by all means, please talk about these important findings ad nauseam on television and radio.

All sarcasm aside, this election cycle will have peaks and valleys.  This latest poll will get breathless attention from liberals, while conservatives will point to Gallup's recent swing-state data and other numbers.  Polls are addictive to horse-race watchers (guilty as charged), but they won't become truly meaningful until late September.  Recall that McCain-Palin raced out to a ten point lead among likely voters in Gallup on the heels of the 2008 RNC.  The rollercoaster ride continues...

UPDATE - A Democratic pollster is questioning another element of the WaPo/ABC numbers.
 

*IGB is a new polling firm that exists entirely in this author's mind.  Methodology inquiries will be ignored.  Thank you.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - As of this writing, Mitt Romney is leading the Nevada caucuses by a substantial margin, and Newt Gingrich looks like he'll hold second place.  For the dynamics of the Silver State results, review this post.  Here's Romney taking it to President Obama at his raucous Nevada victory rally:
 

Tonight's speech featured a few fresh and biting lines: (1) "Well Mr. President, Nevada has had enough of your kind of help." (2) "This president began his presidency by apologizing for America.  He should now be apologizing to America."  The address was one of the more aggressive, energetic efforts we've seen from Romney to date, and his team hopes to keep the enthusiasm rolling throughout the remaining February caucuses and primaries. 

In lieu of an election night party, Newt Gingrich opted for a lengthy press conference, at which he was peppered with process questions about his horserace with Romney.  He came off as whiny and aggrieved, at one point denying that Romney was "in his head."  During roughly 30 minutes of questioning, Gingrich fielded only one policy question (which came from yours truly, regarding "Catholic" Nancy Pelosi's professed support for President Obama's egregious First Amendment violation on religious liberty and Obamacare).  As expected, Newt refused to drop out and vowed to march on to the convention, predicting that he'd be "at parity" with Romney by the end of the Texas primary in early April.  This is all part of Team Newt's new delegate-centered strategy moving forward.  He also stated that he plans to adopt a different approach in handling Romney at their next debate, which is slated for February 22nd in Arizona.  He said that he lost the Florida debates because he was caught off guard and rendered speechless by Romney's "fundamental dishonesty."  He did allow that in a general election between Obama and Romney, there would be "no choice" in the matter, due to Obama's disastrous record.

Neither Rick Santorum nor Ron Paul were in Nevada tonight.  Onward, to Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri...

UPDATE - Video of Newt's opening statement, via Breitbart:
 

Our own Kevin Glass tweets that Charles Krauthammer said on Fox that Newt's response to my question during the Q&A session was the high point of an otherwise low evening for the former Speaker.

CNN's "entrance polls" (slightly different than exit polls because they ask whom voters plan to support as they enter polling places, not whom they've just voted for as they leave) indicate that Mitt Romney is poised to clean up in today's Nevada caucuses.  The only remaining dramas are whether Romney will win a majority, and whether Newt Gingrich may slip to third place behind Ron Paul.  On the first question, the former Massachusetts governor appears poised to take an outright majority.  He won 57 percent of women and 53 percent of men, so unless the entrance polling data is wildly askew, that should be enough to push Romney into overall majority territory.  A few more interesting tidbits:
 

(1) Romney won every educational background demo, and every age cohort except 17-29 year-olds, who went for Paul by a slim margin.

(2) Romney won all voters making more than $30K per year.  He, Gingrich, and Paul roughly split lower income Nevadans, with Paul barely edging out his competitors.

(3) The former Bay State governor carried 61 percent of registered Republicans, with 20 percent for Gingrich.  Ron Paul won independents 48-31 over Romney.

(4) Romney won a majority of "very conservative" voters at 51 percent, more than doubling Gingrich's 24 percent in this category.  He also wins a bare majority among those who describe themselves as Tea Party supporters -- ie, Sharron Angle's base.  (Angle, incidentally, is a Santorum supporter.  The former Senator is expected to come in fourth tonight).

(5) Romney won a plurality of Protestants, a majority of Catholics, and -- as anticipated -- more than 90 percent of Mormons, who comprised over 1/4 of the GOP electorate here.

(6) Of those Nevadans who said a candidate's ability to defeat Obama, personal character, or previous experience were the most important factor in their vote, Romney won majorities of all three groups.  If voters were looking for the "true conservative," they picked Ron Paul 45-31 over Gingrich.  Newt won one percent of Nevada Republicans seeking a candidate with strong character.

The moral of this story is that tonight will be rather anti-climactic: Romney will win big.  His supporters will say this outcome is a big deal because Nevada is a key swing state.  Mitt opponents will downplay the results, arguing that Romney had a major built-in advantage, having won the state in 2008 and by enjoying near-unanimous support among LDS voters.  The political reality will lie somewhere in between.  Romney's win won't be quite as important as his backers will claim, but in terms of momentum, it's very big.  Parting thought: Newt won't drop out tonight, but might he finish behind Ron Paul?  Paul won 23 percent of men and 14 percent of women here.  Gingrich's numbers were 18 and 21, respectively.  How will those numbers shake out in the final tally?  Failing to achieve a top-two finish here would be a blow to Team Newt, which has suffered more than its share of setbacks here in the Silver State.

UPDATE - Millionaire Sheldon Adelson -- whose magnificent hotel I'm staying at here in Las Vegas -- has reportedly informed Mitt Romney that he will bankroll his campaign to the tune of millions, should he capture the nomination.  Until that time, however, Adelson remains a Gingrich supporter, and says he will continue to fund the former Speaker's effort to win the GOP nod.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - A quick, but important, follow-up to Kevin's post about tonight's press conference.  The Gingrich campaign has confirmed to Townhall that Newt will deliver remarks here at the Venetian Hotel at approximately 8:00 pm PT, followed by a Q & A session with the media.  Because Mitt Romney is widely expected to score a resounding win in the Silver State, Team Newt's somewhat hastily-scheduled press conference has generated some online speculation that Newt may be preparing to drop out of the race.  Those rumors are not credible.  The campaign just blasted out an email to reporters detailing the former Speaker's upcoming travel schedule, which includes stops in Colorado and Minnesota -- states that will vote this coming Tuesday.  Beyond that, Gingrich's itinerary includes multiple rallies in Ohio. Buckeye State voters don't go to the polls until Super Tuesday (March 6th), so it doesn't appear that Newt will be throwing in the towel any time soon.  I've reached out to Gingrich's national spokesman for a direct confirmation that Newt is staying in, but have not yet received a response.  The overwhelming evidence suggests that there won't be any game-changing announcement later tonight, but this cycle hasn't exactly been predictable.  Stay tuned...

UPDATE - This nugget from CNN further suggests that Newt is staying put:
 

The Newt Gingrich campaign held a meeting with approximately 60 donors Friday in Las Vegas, including casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a source with knowledge of the session told CNN. Gingrich, who attended the meeting, had a brief discussion with Adelson at the session, the source said.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - As we await the finalized presidential caucus results here in the Silver State, I thought I'd share a quick clip of my recent appearance on the Fox Business Network's Willis Report, in which the panel discusses the Florida primary outcome, Donald Trump's endorsement of Mitt Romney, and the House Republicans' vote to extend the federal pay freeze -- which flies in the face of President Obama's plan to boost bureaucrats' compensation:
 

As a bonus Townhall TV presentation, here's my lovely and talented colleague Elisabeth Meinecke making her television debut, also with Gerri Willis:
 

Today's conventional wisdom holds that the upcoming presidential election is about one thing: The economy, stupid.  But the events of the last week -- from the Komen kerfuffle to the Obama administration's shameful violation of the First Amendment -- demonstrate that the Left hasn't taken a jobs-focused holiday from waging the culture war.  On this score, the videos I've embedded below couldn't be timelier.  Earlier this week, I had the honor of attending a gala celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Susan B. Anthony list, an influential pro-life organization. The event featured two first-term US Senators and ascendant leaders within the conservative movement, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Marco Rubio of Florida. Abortion is a polarizing and complex issue that arouses strong passions on both sides, and many Americans hold conflicted views on the legality and morality of the practice. In recent years, polling data has shown a gradual but unmistakable shift toward anti-abortion views, especially among younger voters, and Senators Ayotte and Rubio are great champions of that emerging pro-life generation.

Opposition to abortion is often cast as an extreme and “anti-women” position by its advocates, a gross distortion that ignores both public opinion generally, and the views of millions of women (not to mention the fact that future women bear the brunt of global gendercide). Abortion “rights” supporters also attempt to cast pro-lifers as religious zealots trying to “impose their beliefs” on their fellow citizens. These criticisms miss the mark as well. First, virtually every single law and regulation in existence represents an imposition of values onto society.  Such is the very nature of law.  Second, while some abortion critics are guided exclusively by their faith, many others would argue that their beliefs are rooted in logic, a widely held sense of ethics and morality, and sound science. Senator Rubio used his keynote address at the SBA List gathering to build a pro-life case based on the latter set of criteria.  The full speech is worth your while -- this guy is really special -- but if you're pressed for time, Rubio presents the crux of his argument in the second clip:
 

On a political level, this address showcases Rubio's talent and promise as a future leader.  He spoke passionately and eloquently on a difficult subject with limited notes, at which he rarely even glanced.  He staked out a bold position without sounding extreme, a difficult needle to thread when tackling hot button controversies.  In short, there's a reason "rising star" buzz and speculation surrounds this guy.  On a higher level, Rubio mounted a compelling and persuasive case, dispensing with numerous fallacies advanced by the "choice" cult.  Especially salient were his discussions of the unsettled nature of pre- and postpartum viability, and the "unwanted" child logical canard -- as well as his contemplation of the conflicting rights conundrum that abortion raises.  The shrillest advocates on both sides of this issue often fail to recognize or convey how complicated it is, and can sometimes sound out-of-touch with how most Americans grapple with the question's many intricacies.  In this speech, Rubio advanced a nuanced and thoughtful case for life.  Bravo.

Parting thought: As the Komen fight reached a boiling point this week, many conservatives (myself included) made donations to the charity because we hate cancer, and because we wanted to affirm the organization's decision to cut ties with a truly vile group.  Under relentless bullying from the pro-abortion Left, the charity quasi-reversed its decision.  Ed Morrissey explains that their new policy will still cut off most future grants to Planned Parenthood (after all, most chapters don't offer the screenings Komen is funding), but their letter of apology was an obvious kowtow to abortion zealots.  Rod Dreher rightly frames the ruthless anti-Komen campaign as clarifying evidence of a malignant and perverse liberal blacklist:
 

Of course I support anybody’s right to withhold money or approval from any organization for any reason. But let’s just be clear what’s going on here. Komen broke ranks, and for the cultural left, that cannot be understood, forgiven, or overlooked; Komen must be ruined. Nothing Komen or Nancy Brinker has ever done for women in 30 years matters to these people. This is war...The more I think about it, the more I realize this is a clarifying moment. Think of it! Three decades of service to women fighting breast cancer, and having raised and distributed hundreds of millions of dollars nearly $2 billion towards that goal, means absolutely nothing to these people now trying to destroy Komen. They could have denounced Komen’s decision, but in light of all Komen has done, and still does for women, turned their ire on the Republicans, the Religious Right, and so forth. But no, Komen broke ranks, and it must be dealt with harshly. And the sympathetic mainstream media is helping them do the job. All this reminds one of exactly what we’re dealing with here: what John Paul II called the culture of death. It is helpful to be reminded which side you’re on.

Indeed.  Which is why speeches like Rubio's are so important, and why even in the throes of a dreadful economic downturn, some issues must not be discarded or ignored, no matter how inconvenient or "off message" they may seem.

That this politically-calculated abdication was entirely predictable doesn't make it any less disgraceful:

Senate Democratic leaders on Friday said they do not intend to bring a fiscal 2013 budget up for a floor vote. "We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year — it's done, we don't need to do it," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters on Friday. Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued that the debt-limit agreement in August directs spending for the next year and said Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has already asked the heads of the subcommittees to write their appropriations bills for fiscal 2013. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has said he would probably mark up a budget resolution for 2013, but Reid recently told the Hill he didn't expect any floor action on a measure produced by the panel.

Schumer said it’s a "total falsity" for Republicans to say that Democrats haven't passed the budget. "We passed it on Aug. 2," Schumer said, referring to the debt deal. "They're attacking us because they have nothing better to do," Reid added. "They need something else to talk about."

Lest you've forgotten, this display comes within weeks of Reid & Co's woeful budget anniversary.  A few points:  First, pace Schumer, it's not a "total falsity" that Democrats haven't passed a budget.  They haven't drawn up, introduced, or passed a fiscal blueprint in nearly three years.  The debt deal "deemed" a budget to have passed, which is quite different than, you know, actually budgeting.  Second, the Debt Deal Deem is just the latest excuse Democrats have offered for their inaction.  They've been lying about this for years, mostly blaming Republican "obstructionism" -- which is a red herring of the highest order.  The truth is that Senate Democrats refuse to do their job because they fear that producing a budget could hurt them politically.  This was true in 2009, 2010, 2011, and today.  Top budget committee Republicans are unloading on their Democrat colleagues.  Rep. Paul Ryan:
 

Earlier today, Senate Democrats confirmed that they’ve given up on budgeting. What a disgrace. Senate Majority Leader Reid's refusal to budget is a recipe for crisis. By refusing to confront the storm clouds ahead, Senate Democrats are committing our nation to a future of debt, doubt and decline.

Sen. Jeff Sessions: 

"By refusing to lay out a budget plan for public examination—a fact no one can deny—the Democrat Senate has forfeited the high privilege to lead this chamber. If Sen. Reid and his members stand by this announcement, it means that the American people will go through yet another year of crisis without Senate Democrats unveiling and standing behind a financial plan for our future. Budget Control Act spending caps, crafted behind closed doors and rushed to passage at the 11th hour under threat of panic, do not even approach the definition of the budget process that the law requires. They are not in any way or any sense a Senate Democrat budget plan. There is no argument that can be made that these caps are a long-term vision for this country—not on taxes, not on entitlements, not on spending, not on debt."

 

Parting thought: As Senate Democrats continue to refuse to carry out the most basic (and legally mandated) obligations of governance, they've still managed to find the time to formally denounce a private charity for its decision to redirect roughly $700,000 of funds to better serve the needs of women.  They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, but that would require the capacity for shame.

The media has been all abuzz over real estate mogul Donald Trump's forthcoming endorsement of Newt Gignrich ever since reports to that effect surfaced last night.  But in a dramatic turn of events over the last few hours, it has emerged that Trump will bestow his electoral blessing upon Mitt Romney instead:
 

Donald Trump will endorse Mitt Romney in Las Vegas on Thursday, sources familiar with the decision tell ABC News. A political aide in Trump’s office spoke directly with Mitt Romney by phone last night before Trump’s private plane took off from New York City to Las Vegas. The call, sources say, was to inform Romney of Thursday’s endorsement, which will take place at a 12:30 p.m. event at the Trump International Hotel on the Las Vegas strip.

Trump's a loudmouth Birther who ostentatiously bolted the Republican Party in December, and whose every move seems calculated to generate maximum attention for himself.  Regular readers will recall that I'm not a fan of The Donald, and I don't see how this endorsement will benefit Romney in the least.  In fact, according to this Fox News poll, it might actually damage:
 

A Fox News poll last month suggested the reality TV star and businessman could do a candidate more harm than good. In the poll, 27 percent said his endorsement would make them less likely to support a candidate. Only 10 percent said Trump's support would make them more likely to vote for a candidate. For most people, the endorsement would make no difference. 

The Romney campaign did not release their public schedule until Thursday morning — a rarity for them — and even then their 12:30 p.m. slot (the time at which Mr. Trump is set to endorse) stood vague, offering only: “Romney for President Event. TBD Location. Las Vegas, Nevada.” Mr. Romney will appear with Mr. Trump at his Trump International Hotel & Tower here.

This decision is mystifying.  You just know that the first question or two that Romney will field from reporters will pertain to President Obama's birth certificate.  Wasn't Romney supposed to be the guy who could make the general election all about Obama's record and not get bogged down by needlessly indulging counter-productive distractions?  So much for that.  He'll instead appear on stage with a Democrat-donating advocate of tax hikes and universal healthcare to celebrate their newfound political alliance.  As Greg notes below, the optics of this spectacle will be sweet nectar for the Obama campaign and DNC.  Trump is famous for firing people.  Say, didn't Romney churn out a harmful messaging disaster just yesterday?  And his campaign's follow-up to the "very poor" flap is this?  Good grief.  One of the best arguments for Romney as the nominee is that he is an intelligent guy with an organized and well-prepared campaign.  Did the candidate authorize a two-day vacation from competence after his Florida win?  Maybe Team Romney is a little punch drunk off the latest polling numbers in Michigan (+15), Arizona (+24) and Nevada:
 

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney enjoys a substantial lead over rival Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich among registered Nevada Republicans and those likely to attend Saturday's statewide presidential caucuses. An 8NewsNow/Las Vegas Review-Journal telephone poll, conducted Friday through Tuesday by UNLV's Cannon Survey Center, found Romney favored by 44.5 percent of 608 registered Republicans polled, compared to only 24.2 percent for former House Speaker Gingrich. Fellow Republican candidates Rick Santorum (10.9 percent) and Ron Paul (9.1 percent) also remained well behind.

The only explanation I can summon for Romney's baffling call to genuflect before Trump is that he's trying to kill off any residual threat of a third party run.  Polls show that such an adventure from the center-right would insulate Barack Obama, whose popularity is otherwise limping along.  This story from National Journal puts some more meat on these bones:
 

The bad news: His job approval ratings in the other battleground states are solidly underwater and, in many states, worse than publicly perceived. In Colorado, seen as a gateway to aggressively contesting the Southwest, Obama scored a net -12 job approval (40/52) throughout the year. In Nevada, also seen as a major bellwether, Obama has a 41 percent approval rating, with 50 percent of respondents disapproving. In the critical battleground state of Ohio, 50 percent of voters disapprove of his performance, with only 42 percent approving.   In the must-win state of Pennsylvania, Obama's job approval is underwater, with 45 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving.

Some unpleasant surprises abound for the Obama campaign, too. New Mexico has been seen as a Democratic-leaning state because of its voting history and significant Hispanic population.  But Obama's performance there -- 42 percent favorable, 51 percent unfavorable -- isn't much different than his weak standing in the other Southwestern battlegrounds.  The Obama campaign has been arguing it has an outside shot at contesting Arizona, but his approval rating is at 40 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. In New Hampshire, a state that John Kerry carried in 2004, Obama's job approval is at 39 percent, with 54 percent disapproving.  It's a state that, with Romney heading the GOP ticket, is starting to look out of reach.

These numbers notwithstanding, the eventual Republican nominee is going to have to bring his A-game to defeat the deep-pocketed incumbent in November.  Beyond his impressive victory on Tuesday, this hasn't exactly been a banner week for Mitt Romney.

UPDATE - I half-agree with Carol's take on all this, but I still don't see why a gracious statement accepting Trump's endorsement wouldn't suffice.  Maybe Trump insisted on a joint press conference?

That's the quote you'll see in the inevitable Democratic attack ads, anyway.  During a post-Florida victory lap interview on CNN, Romney attempted to explain that his focus as president would be to restore economic prosperity for America's battered middle class -- but in doing so, he handed the Left a ready-made soundbyte to slice and exploit:
 

Within the full context of the quote, Romney's point is fairly harmless.  He's saying that the most indigent among us already have a generous safety net on which to fall back (welfare, SCHIP, Medicaid, etc), and that very well-off citizens are doing just fine on their own.  In other words, this was a terribly ham-fisted effort at talking about improving most Americans' lives by trimming government and liberating private enterprise to create jobs.  But while sites like this one -- and even some mainstream news outlets -- will quote Romney in context, Democrats will feel no such obligation.  Their commitment to the truth has been well documented.  As the borderline-prohibitive frontrunner, Romney needs to avoid waltzing into totally unforced rhetorical errors like his "not concerned" quote.  This latest episode should concern his campaign because isn't an isolated incident. 

Last year, Romney joked that he, too, was "unemployed." It was an awkward attempt to be funny, but it probably wasn't all that amusing for genuinely unemployed people, coming from a multi-millionare.  During a December debate in Iowa, Romney tried to lure Rick Perry into a $10,000 bet over a minor disagreement.  It was cringe-worthy.  And just last month, Romney made the entirely uncontroversial statement that he enjoys having the option of dumping a service provider over poor performance, but he phrased it in such a way that included the snippet, "I like being able to fire people."  Just like his gaffe this morning, the substance of that comment was innocuous; it was the way he framed it that flung open the doors of demagoguery.  Mitt Romney's enormous wealth is not a liability for his campaign in and of itself.  (He gives prodigious amounts of money to charity, which belies any suggestion that he actually doesn't care about the poor).  But how Romney discusses economic issues in light of his own affluence really does matter.  Fair or not, optics are consequential in our political system.  Democrats' entire strategy against Romney, if he's the nominee, is to beat the class warfare drum loudly and relentlessly to try to drown out President Obama's demonstrable failures.  There's nothing that Team Romney can do to prevent Democrats from employing this cynical strategy, but their candidate should consciously avoid making his opponents' job any easier.

UPDATE - Mark Steyn has a bone to pick with Romney's premise, not his phraseology:
 

Romney’s is a benevolent patrician’s view of society: The poor are incorrigible, but let’s add a couple more groats to their food stamps and housing vouchers, and they’ll stay quiet. Aside from the fact that that kind of thinking has led the western world to near terminal insolvency, for a candidate whose platitudinous balderdash of a stump speech purports to believe in the most Americanly American America that any American has ever Americanized over, it’s as dismal a vision of permanent trans-generational poverty as any Marxist community organizer with a cozy sinecure on the Acorn board would come up with.

After half-a-century of evidence, what sort of “conservative” offers the poor the Even Greater Society? I don’t know how “electable” Mitt is, but, even if he is, the greater danger, given the emptiness of his campaign to date, is that he’ll be elected with no real mandate for the course correction the Brokest Nation in History urgently needs...

As usual, Steyn makes an incisive and crucial point.

The moment in question comes at the tail end of Rush Limbaugh's Tuesday program as he shares some parting thoughts before election night.  Listen as Rush takes a shot at Gingrich over global warming just before walking right up to the endorsement line on Santorum's behalf.  Did he cross that threshold?  You decide (via The Blaze):
 

"Nobody is innocent.  Everybody is guilty of some transgression somewhere against conservatism, except...Santorum.  See you tomorrow."

As for Santorum's blemish-free political record, RedState's Erick Erickson would beg to differ, as would Santorum endorser Michelle Malkin:
 

He lost his Senate re-election bid in 2006, an abysmal year for conservatives. He was a go-along, get-along Big Government Republican in the Bush era. He supported No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit entitlement, steel tariffs, and earmarks and outraged us movement conservatives by endorsing RINO Arlen Specter over stalwart conservative Pat Toomey.

Within the context of the overall race, I took Rush's point to be that Rick Santorum's ideological heresies pale in comparison to Romney and Gingrich's.  So here's my question: If he believes the former Senator's conservative credentials are clearly superior to his rivals', why did El Rushbo hold off until (literally) the very last second to unambiguously state that opinion?  By the time he uttered those words at 2:59pm ET yesterday, the vast majority of votes in Florida had already been cast, so the pronouncement was unlikely to (and didn't) make much of an impact.  Could Rush be setting the table for a longer-haul fight, wherein Santorum supplants Newt as the leading Not Romney?  Newt certainly hasn't gotten that memo.  I know the powerful radio host has said he's intentionally staying neutral to help him remain objective on the air, but he also said he planned to vote in the Florida primary.  In light of his comment at the end of Tuesday's broadcast, is there any doubt that he voted for Santorum, or am I totally overblowing the comment?  If I were on Team Santorum, I'd be turning that soundbyte into radio and television ads today.  Tick tock.